Matthew joined the BB7 board in April 2019 and represents our investor BGF on the board of several portfolio companies.
Matthew joined BGF in October 2018 to support the growing portfolio. Prior to BGF, Matthew worked at Caird Capital, a UK mid-market private equity firm, where he managed equity investments across a range of sectors, working alongside investee teams to deliver a number of successful transactions. He began his career at Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group where he held various principal investment and leveraged finance roles before joining Caird in 2010.
Matthew holds an MSC in Management Sciences from Loughborough University and is a Chartered Banker. He is married with three children, who he spends most of his time outside work ferrying around.
Katie has a background in finance and private equity. She has over 20 years of experience investing in and working with UK businesses across a range of sectors, with a focus on service-orientated businesses in regulated markets.
Alongside her role at BB7, Katie chairs Finatal, a leading private capital recruitment specialist, and works as a partner and advisor to Agathos Management, a London-based private equity firm investing in UK SMEs.
Prior to her current roles, Katie was a Partner and Head of Portfolio at August Equity LLP and previously held roles at Doughty Hanson LLP, Darwin Private Equity LLP and Lazard.
BB7’s people-focused CEO prides himself on his approachability. He keeps in touch with as many people as possible and considers seeing people grow personally and professionally a business imperative. He prides himself on knowing where each of his people is in their career journey and places a lot of weight on shaping, nurturing, and enforcing our values and culture.
Why the name BB7? Ben founded the company on SEVEN guiding principles. These are our values and they describe the unique character, spirit and identity that are embedded in BB7. Ben is adamant that we must get this stuff right, because we do not want to be just another organisation.
Under Ben’s stewardship, the firm now has a network of offices throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. He’s an MBA with significant board-level experience in both commercial organisations and not-for-profit professional bodies. He was an executive Director in a multi-national fire engineering firm, a Non-Executive Director at the RICS and former President and Chairman of the board at the Chartered Association of Building Engineers. In 2019, the Mayor of London appointed him as a Non-Executive Director as part of the Skills for Londoners, Business Partnership.
He studied Building Surveying, Building Engineering and holds dual professional status as a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Surveyor and the passion he has for the company and his profession is unmistakable. For Ben it’s all about purpose, it’s not enough to simply practice engineering or risk management; he aims to make a significant contribution to the development of these professions. He understands that to be a professional we must contribute to the public good.
Harvey is our CFO, a qualified accountant with over 25 years at Board and Senior Management levels.
He has considerable experience of leading a finance team through the adaptions and transformation needed by a fast growing organisation operating at the leading edge of its industry.
Previous experience includes being Financial Controller of Russell and Brand a growth hungry catering services business; before moving to the Marriott Hotel Group; which required business transformation skills due to their acquisition strategy. Harvey’s experience is unquestionable and he has played a pivotal role in transforming the service portfolio of previous organisations and aggressively increasing turnover year on year.
Linda joined BB7 in May 2016 and began formalising HR within the business working closely with the CEO to embed the company values and vision. Since then HR at BB7 has remained focused on our number one value – People.
Linda continues her dedication on acquiring and managing the human resources function required for long-term sustainable success within BB7. In addition to traditional resource planning, recruiting and retention strategies, her role also encompasses executive coaching, leadership development and succession planning.
Our passionate people are what makes the company succeed and focusing on their engagement, wellbeing and enjoyment at work remains our focus, enabling our culture to thrive.
Linda’s role includes being an ambassador for workforce spending, who can demonstrate the benefits by impact on ROI. She is able to analyse human capital data and industry trends to guide recommendations on company policy. She enjoys building culture to improve employee retention, as well as aid in talent acquisition.
Linda continues to facilitate and build relationships to access new talent pools and lead change management efforts as they relate to human capital.
Linda will drive HR in the coming years, bringing the team with her into new and innovative ways of working and growing, embarking on campaigns and ideas to further support our people in their career journeys.
Having studied Manufacturing Systems Engineering at university, Nick has had a career focussing on scaling businesses across the world. Having worked extensively in Africa, India and the US, he now leverages his most recent experience optimising the operating model, delivering the growth strategy and leading the operational team here at BB7.
Before joining BB7 as Chief Operating Officer, Nick spent 12 years as COO for a private equity-backed pharmaceutical consultancy, Prescient Healthcare Group. He helped grow the business to service clients from 8 offices across 3 continents and by the time he left, Prescient employed more than 500 highly skilled scientists.
Outside of work, Nick lives with his wife and 4 children in Scotland. He is often found walking and running the hills or spending time exploring the endless lochs and coastlines of Scotland by boat.